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By Stephanie Palazzolo

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Recent Editions

Chart by Shane Burke.

How Long Can OpenAI’s First-Mover Advantage Last?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 4, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

As companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta Platforms race to leapfrog each other with marginally faster, cheaper or more accurate large language models, a number of developers have told me that these LLMs are beginning to reach parity when it comes to performance.And now, new exclusive data from Kruze Consulting, a finance and HR... As companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta Platforms race to leapfrog each other with...

Div Garg, co-founder and CEO of MultiOn, at the GenAI Summit in San Francisco May 29. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Could This Startup Be Amazon’s Horse in the Agent Race?

By Anissa Gardizy · Jun 3, 2024 7:10am PDT

Artificial intelligence that automates multi-step tasks on the web, such as organizing and booking a trip, is still under development. But it may be only a matter of months before big developers such as Google, Meta Platforms, OpenAI and others release such time-saving tools.We’ve been wondering where Amazon will be in this race, and how it... Artificial intelligence that automates multi-step tasks on the web, such as organizing and...

Photo via Shutterstock

The Cold, Hard Numbers of AI Returns

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 30, 2024 7:00am PDT · 3 comments

Over and over again, I’ve heard the same mantra from AI founders and big tech execs: 2023 was the year that businesses experimented with AI, but 2024 will be the year they truly put it to use.So for the last five months, we’ve been on the lookout for the cold, hard numbers demonstrating what value businesses and consumers are getting from... Over and over again, I’ve heard the same mantra from AI founders and big tech execs: 2023 was the...

Photo by Getty

Why OpenAI’s Safety Reorg Might Actually Be a Good Idea; An Ex-OpenAI Board Member Speaks Out; Meta Enters the Chatbot Subscription Race

By Aaron Holmes · May 29, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Photo by Getty

Why OpenAI’s Safety Reorg Might Actually Be a Good Idea; An Ex-OpenAI Board Member Speaks Out; Meta Enters the Chatbot Subscription Race

By Aaron Holmes · May 29, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

When the leaders of OpenAI’s “superalignment” team quit two weeks ago, CEO Sam Altman found himself once again facing allegations that he’s not sufficiently worried about artificial intelligence bringing about the end of the world (or other, less-apocalyptic safety concerns). After the high-profile resignations, OpenAI said it had folded... When the leaders of OpenAI’s “superalignment” team quit two weeks ago, CEO Sam Altman found...

XAI and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photo by Sonny Tembelaka/AFP via Getty Images

Sizing Up Musk's xAI Supercomputer

By Amir Efrati · May 28, 2024 4:00am PDT · 3 comments

You’re going to hear the term “supercomputer” a lot in the coming months. It’s just a cool way of saying “a large cluster of servers running Nvidia chips,” but without as many words. Anyone who’s anyone in AI is going to talk about their supercomputer, and we imagine that Elon Musk will be one of them—especially after Anissa on Friday reported... You’re going to hear the term “supercomputer” a lot in the coming months. It’s just a cool way of...

Art by Mike Sullivan/Midjourney

More Startups Seek Buyers But Price is a Problem; Nvidia’s Eternal Sunshine

By Amir Efrati · May 23, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Conversational artificial intelligence startups are singing the acquisition blues. As Natasha and I reported on Wednesday, Adept, which raised more than $400 million from investors at a $1 billion-plus valuation to develop artificial intelligence agents, has been exploring a buyout, including from Meta Platforms. A Meta deal is unlikely, though.... Conversational artificial intelligence startups are singing the acquisition blues. As Natasha and...

Google ads product leader Vidhya Srinivasan on Tuesday. Photo via Google

The Unstoppable Google

By Jon Victor · May 22, 2024 7:00am PDT · 4 comments

Inside Google a year ago, conventional wisdom held that artificial intelligence chatbots from OpenAI and Microsoft would shrink its lucrative search advertising business—and fast. Not only was that wrong, but the company’s annual event for advertisers on Tuesday showed how conversational AI can take that business to new heights.Google... Inside Google a year ago, conventional wisdom held that artificial intelligence chatbots...

Suno's Mikey Shulman, Martin Camachol, Keenan Freyberg and George Kucsko. Photos via Suno/Shutterstock. Photo illustration by The Information.

Music Generator Suno Raises Capital at $500 Million Valuation; Altman Went Behind ‘Her’ Back

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 21, 2024 7:05am PDT

Suno's Mikey Shulman, Martin Camachol, Keenan Freyberg and George Kucsko. Photos via Suno/Shutterstock. Photo illustration by The Information.

Music Generator Suno Raises Capital at $500 Million Valuation; Altman Went Behind ‘Her’ Back

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 21, 2024 7:05am PDT

New York isn’t known for its roomy apartments, which is why my electric piano is currently gathering dust on top of my kitchen cabinets. So I was especially excited to use Suno, an artificial intelligence music generator. It turns simple text descriptions like “a dark disco song about when you're not around” and “a romantic garage song about... New York isn’t known for its roomy apartments, which is why my electric piano is currently...

OpenAI's Sam Altman and recently departed Jan Leike and Ilya Sutskever. Photos via Getty and YouTube/Towards Data Science.

What Altman Will Do to Make OpenAI Live Up to Its Name Again; Why You Should Care About Stability’s Implosion

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 20, 2024 7:36am PDT

In classic OpenAI fashion, big drama dropped on Friday. Jan Leike, who formerly co-led OpenAI’s superalignment team with Ilya Sutskever—the co-founder and chief scientist who temporarily ousted CEO Sam Altman in November—explained on X why he left the company. Altman & Co. failed to give superalignment, which aimed to be a check on OpenAI... In classic OpenAI fashion, big drama dropped on Friday. Jan Leike, who formerly co-led OpenAI’s...

Carnegie Mellon University. Photo via Adobe Stock.

Legal Problems Are Coming for AI Researchers in Academia; OpenAI Cofounder Shares His AGI Timeline

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 16, 2024 7:30am PDT

Artificial intelligence developers have a long history of playing fast and loose with intellectual property rights when it comes to getting data to train their models. While data owners are increasingly suing OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and other major firms over such alleged violations, the heat may soon be turned on academics who operate... Artificial intelligence developers have a long history of playing fast and loose with...

Google DeepMind CEO, Demis Hassabis. Photo via Google.

Why Google and OpenAI Don’t See Eye to Eye on Voice Assistants

By Amir Efrati and Jon Victor · May 15, 2024 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Google has spent the past year and a half chasing OpenAI’s conversational artificial intelligence. But as the technical gap narrows between their products, the companies this week revealed an important difference in how their AIs will interact with people. (To read the five main takeaways from Google’s two-hour spate of announcements, see this... Google has spent the past year and a half chasing OpenAI’s conversational artificial...

OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati introducing GPT-4o. Photo via YouTube/OpenAI.

OpenAI’s Impressive Engineering Feat with GPT-4o AKA ‘Her’

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Kalley Huang · May 14, 2024 7:00am PDT

OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati introducing GPT-4o. Photo via YouTube/OpenAI.

OpenAI’s Impressive Engineering Feat with GPT-4o AKA ‘Her’

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Kalley Huang · May 14, 2024 7:00am PDT

OpenAI’s Google search killer may not yet be ready for prime time, and neither is the long-awaited GPT-5 large language model. But the ChatGPT developer on Monday may have still managed to steal some thunder ahead of Google’s annual conference for software developers, I/O, which starts later this morning.In a 26-minute demonstration, OpenAI COO... OpenAI’s Google search killer may not yet be ready for prime time, and neither is the...

Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai. Photos via Getty Images.

OpenAI Looks To Steal Google’s Thunder; Unicorn AI Marketing Startup Typeface Acquires Consumer Chatbot App

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 13, 2024 7:00am PDT

Later today, OpenAI is expected to unveil a bunch of new products. For a sneak peek at what could come, you can check out our story from Friday. But the timing of the event is interesting, given that tomorrow is Google’s largest annual developer conference, Google I/O, where that company is also expected to make a slew of AI-related... Later today, OpenAI is expected to unveil a bunch of new products. For a sneak peek at what could...

Art by Shane Burke.

Developers Push to Build AI Models Native to Non-English Languages

By Kalley Huang · May 9, 2024 8:06am PDT

¿Habla español? Parlez-vous français? You might, but today’s large language models may not speak either Spanish or French very well. It’s a shortcoming that many developers are trying to address, especially since making LLMs available in more languages may attract more users. To give a sense of the issue, Meta Platforms said in a blog post... ¿Habla español? Parlez-vous français? You might, but today’s large language models may not speak...

DatologyAI cofounders, from left to right, Matthew Leavitt, Bogdan Gaza and Ari Morcos. Photo courtesy of DatologyAI.

Ex-DeepMind and Meta AI Researcher Raises Nearly $50 Million To Help Developers With LLMs’ Secret Sauce

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 8, 2024 7:00am PDT

For all that’s leaked about the sizes and architectures of the advanced large language models developed by OpenAI and its ilk, we still don’t know what data they were trained on.A pessimist might say that’s because of the numerous lawsuits LLM developers would face if the amount of copyrighted content they were using was revealed, but a more... For all that’s leaked about the sizes and architectures of the advanced large language models...

The Rabbit r1 and Humane Ai pin.

AI Devices Get A Rude Wake-Up Call; A Mysterious OpenAI Product Event Is Likely Postponed

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 7, 2024 7:00am PDT

The Rabbit r1 and Humane Ai pin.

AI Devices Get A Rude Wake-Up Call; A Mysterious OpenAI Product Event Is Likely Postponed

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 7, 2024 7:00am PDT

It’s been hard to miss the absolute beating AI-powered devices have gotten in recent weeks.First, we saw YouTuber Marques Brownlee’s scorching review of the $699 Humane Ai Pin, which he deemed the “worst product” he’s ever reviewed. (Yikes.)Next, the rabbit r1, a kitschy, bright-orange handheld device that first went viral when it launched at... It’s been hard to miss the absolute beating AI-powered devices have gotten in recent weeks.First,...

Photo by Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Meet MAI-1: Microsoft Readies New AI Model to Compete With Google, OpenAI

By Aaron Holmes · May 6, 2024 7:20am PDT

For the first time since it invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI in exchange for the rights to reuse the startup’s AI models, Microsoft is training a new, in-house AI model large enough to compete with state-of-the-art models from Google, Anthropic and OpenAI itself.The new model, internally referred to as MAI-1, is being overseen by ... For the first time since it invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI in exchange for the rights...

Photo via Adobe Stock.

How Developers Gave Llama 3 More Memory

By Kalley Huang · May 2, 2024 7:00am PDT

Developers have been praising Meta Platforms’ Llama 3, the latest version of its flagship large language model. But, as my colleague Stephanie and I explained, they have one big criticism: Llama 3’s context window is too short, at just over 8,000 tokens. (As a refresher, a context window is how much information a model can accept in a single... Developers have been praising Meta Platforms’ Llama 3, the latest version of its flagship large...

Photo via Adobe Stock/Shane Burke

Are Publishers Fighting For ‘The Right To Be Forgotten?’

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 1, 2024 7:10am PDT · 1 comment

When news broke on Tuesday of a new copyright infringement lawsuit filed against OpenAI and Microsoft, this time by eight daily newspapers, I was reminded of a conversation I had a month ago with Rich Skrenta, executive director at the Common Crawl, a nonprofit that supplies open-source web crawl data.He argued that in the future, consumers... When news broke on Tuesday of a new copyright infringement lawsuit filed against OpenAI and ...

Art by Shane Burke

Are We Running Out of Training Data?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 30, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Shane Burke

Are We Running Out of Training Data?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 30, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

I was catching up with the new AI Index Report from Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute when one section caught my eye. That was a forecast that we’ll likely run out of high-quality language data needed for train AI models sometime this year.That’s a worrying timeline. So far, AI companies have improved their large... I was catching up with the new AI Index Report from Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial...